Nets use 4 of historic 5 1st-round picks on guards

NEW YORK -- The Brooklyn Nets utilized each 5 of their first-round picks successful the 2025 NBA draught Wednesday night, becoming the archetypal squad successful league past to marque 5 selections successful the opening round.

Perhaps adjacent much astonishing than the information that they kept each their picks: Four of the 5 players the Nets took are guards, with 3 of them being constituent guards.

Brooklyn entered the nighttime with picks No. 8, 19, 22, 26 and 27, fueling speculation that the Nets would commercialized astatine slightest a mates of them to tweak the roster oregon consolidate them for a bigger haul successful the future. Instead, wide manager Sean Marks utilized them all, cementing what was already wide assumed: Brooklyn volition beryllium successful a developmental signifier during the 2025-26 season, adjacent arsenic the Eastern Conference appears to beryllium wide unfastened with a fig of the apical clubs -- the Bucks, Cavs, Celtics and Pacers among them -- dealing with cardinal injuries.

Marks began the nighttime by taking Egor Demin, a 6-foot-9 level wide and dazzling passer from Russia via BYU, past followed that up by selecting different constituent defender successful 6-5 playmaker Nolan Traoré from France. Both came disconnected the committee earlier than expected, arsenic ESPN's last mock draught projected Demin and Traoré to beryllium taken 13th and 22nd, respectively.

North Carolina helping Drake Powell became the Nets' 3rd enactment earlier Brooklyn took Israeli constituent defender Ben Saraf and Michigan large antheral Danny Wolf to circular things out.

"I'm thrilled with the radical we got tonight," Marks said of utilizing each 5 of the picks. "We've got immoderate guys who play the close way, determination the shot the close mode and person immoderate untapped skills there."

The Nets besides ain the No. 36 wide prime erstwhile the draught resumes Thursday.

The historical usage of the picks begins a summertime successful which manager Jordi Fernandez and his Brooklyn nine volition person to fig retired a fistful of roster questions, including the aboriginal of guardant Cameron Johnson and Cam Thomas' restricted escaped agency.

However, 1 happening seems clear: With D'Angelo Russell hitting escaped bureau and the nine having had a revolving doorway of constituent guards since Kyrie Irving was traded to Dallas successful 2023, the rookie draught picks are going to person a accidental to tally the amusement arsenic the Nets look toward the future.